An Augmentation of Faith
by Wolfe W. Steele
Summary: Steele's had his fair share of tragedies, and it's time for a change.


_            Loss. You either live with it, or die as a result of it. I was one of the ones who lived with it. When I was only three weeks old my mother was savagely massacred by a pack of hungry wolves. After that my father as a result of depression left me. He supposedly embarked on some "spiritual journey"; one from which he'd never return. Up until a year ago I was completely alone with no one to hold on to. I lived my days running through the frozen forests, hunting my prey, finding empty dens to claim, and inflicting torture on any wolf I could get my paws on. Last year I was found. Not by wolves; but by a lone sled-dog named Star. He promised me a warm home, a surplus of food, and the protection of his friends; under the condition that I do one simple thing: Serve his master. Kneeling to someone wasn't exactly my forte, especially since I had survived my entire life on my own. However, I thought "Why not?" After all, this was the best chance of surviving I had. For the rest of that year I learned how to be a sled-dog and did daily runs with my team and master. Since I was naturally fast at running I grew quite popular with the local dogs. I even became a little vainglorious..._

_            One day I happened to fall in love with one of those dogs. I had never seen her before, so she must have been new to the place. She was beautiful to say the very least. Her gorgeous red fur sparkling in the sun, her wild and bushy tail wagging in the breeze...and her smile.....Oh how I loved her smile. Every time she smiled my heart leapt with joy, my eyes filled with passion, and my veins filled with life. Jenna was her name, and I longed to be with her. I would watch her as she walked about town, and silently keeping to myself I thought about what it would be like if the two of us were together. One day she noticed me watching her, and as she proceeded to confront me I backed away in slight embarrassment. We engaged in conversation and I went on to tell her all about my life, and she told me of hers. Turns out we had a lot in common. She was a rogue dog as well, separated from her parents as a child and living her life in loneliness and desperation. Over time her and I formulated a close bond between us. We would spend nearly every day together, and she would even linger in my thoughts while I was away sledding with my team. Things were really looking on the upside for me...until he showed up. At first he was a loner; gone unnoticed by everyone, even me. Nobody even liked him, but eventually I began to feel Jenna's love withering away from me. I knew that she was in love with him...and the fact he was part wolf infuriated me even more. Soon enough she stopped coming to see me, even when I had waited patiently for me. It broke my heart. Part of me wanted to lash out in anger and kill this wolf-dog. Another part of me just wanted to lay back and cry. So I did. Each night I would lie alone and cry myself to sleep with no one to hear me. Even though I had lost Jenna...things still remained bearable. My house remained warm. My food remained plentiful. My friends remained loyal. However, it was on that one fateful night my life would take a change for the worst. A new sickness had spread across the town of Nome, and the only way to purge it was to trek across the vast Alaskan wilderness with my team and retrieve a box of vaccines to bring back. It sounded easy enough, though with Jenna no longer in my life my high spirits were dim and faded. We proceeded through the wilderness at the direction of our master, exactly as planned. After about a week of running we had gotten the vaccines, exactly as planned. We turned around and headed back to Nome, exactly as planned. What happened next wasn't planned. We unexpectedly ran across a patch of ice and slipped, knocking our master unconscious, and sending the vaccines spiraling off the sled. What happened after that definitely wasn't planned. That wolf-dog came prancing out of the forest like everything was perfectly fine and offered to assist us. I wasn't going to allow him to take what I had left away from me. He may have already had Jenna but he wasn't going to have my glory. I fought him furiously...and he won. He sent me tumbling down a steep cliff, and even I myself thought I was going to die. When I had realized I was still alive I scrambled slowly back to the top and found the sled and my team...gone. For the next week I trudged back towards Nome hoping that my friends and master would greet me. I was met only with upbraids and revilement. Then I knew that everything was gone...and that he had stolen it all away from me._

_So here I am...back where I started, with no one to hold on to and no place to go._

_Life is a cold and heartless game..and I'm a loser._


End file.
